Can't delete VM using "Delete From Disk" in Vcenter 2.5

[barrickd]

Running a clean install of VCenter 2.5 Update 2, and an upgraded ESX 3.5 Update 2.

I have a VM that I right click and select "Delete from Disk", click yes on the confirmation message and then immediately get "Permission to perform this operation was denied".

Any ideas?

[mike_laspina]

Hello,

Are you a member of the Local Administrators group and have any changes occured in the role permissions or groups that roles are associated with?

[barrickd]

Sorry, I should have included that in my original post. Yes, I'm assigned the admin role to our system and have the necessary permissions.

[mike_laspina]

Are you also a member of a built in group that is assigned to a restricted role permission.

Permissions in VMware VC are a union function. E.g. you are member of two groups one is associated with VM User role and the other is Administrator role. The union of the roles based on the groups will result in the lesser roles permissions of VM User comming into effect when applied at the VC object level.

[barrickd]

Negative.

My userid is assigned as Administrator at the topmost level "Hosts and Clusters" and is set to propogate down. I just created a test VM and was able to delete it without error, so there appears to be something going on only with existing VM's.

[mike_laspina]

Check for vdevices like CD-ROM that are connected to a vmfs store etc.

[barrickd]

None exist.

I'm also unable to simply "remove from inventory" as well. Right clicking in the permissions tab while under "virtual machines and templates" view and I get a greyed out "add permissions". I can however administer other vm's in other folders. Something seems to have gotten corrupted on this individual folder and the vm's within it. Any back door ways to get these boxes deleted?

[mike_laspina]

There must be a incorrect permission set somewhere.

Log in as a local administrator account at the VC and try it there.

Check for permissions assigned with default builtin local groups, this is highly suspect.

[barrickd]

No other permissions exists. I'm an admin at the root level.

As a test, I added a test userid with the same permissions to the root folder. Logged in with that id and was able to delete the vm's. I also removed and re-added my admin account rights at root, then logged in and still could not administer vm's within that folder. Not sure what/how is happening, but worked around it.

[mike_laspina]

It could be a bug.

[geob]

You could always try to remove it from the ESX Hosts.

SSH into the host then su to root. You then should run vmware-cmd command and unregister the VM. Then find it's folder and delete it with the following command

rm -rf /vmfs/volumes/dtatstore/vmname

If your folder or files permissins were changed somehow on the hosts, this would remedy the problem.